Cherry Tree Wealth Management

Tony Christianson leads the wealth management division as President, with Principal Gordon Heinitz overseeing portfolio construction and client strategy. The broader Cherry Tree organization traces its roots to 1980, and investment opportunities are sourced through the affiliated investment banking and principal investing teams, giving Christianson and Heinitz direct line-of-sight into deal flow that originates in-house.

The firm does both but skews heavily toward direct and co-investment structures, particularly in real estate and private credit. Cherry Tree sponsors its own operating companies and funds — including Roers Companies in real estate — and wealth management clients access these through direct allocations rather than blind-pool commitments to third-party managers. The firm's investment banking arm also structures private credit vehicles that serve as a captive pipeline for client capital.

Rather than committing to external real estate funds, Cherry Tree forms and sponsors its own real estate operating companies. The most prominent example is Roers Companies, a development and property management firm active across the Dakotas and Minnesota. Cherry Tree co-invests client capital alongside its own principal equity into individual development projects or portfolio acquisitions, maintaining operational control through the sponsored operator model.

Cherry Tree's investment mandates exclude venture capital, public equities as a core allocation, and any geography beyond the Upper Midwest and adjacent Great Plains states for direct real estate. The firm's wealth management practice is built for capital preservation and income generation through hard assets and secured lending rather than technology or growth-stage exposure, and it does not manufacture or distribute its own mutual funds or ETFs.